Inside Max Richter’s ‘Sleep,’ an ‘Eight-Hour Lullaby’ for Adults

If you want to sleep better tonight, composer Max Richter has a proposition: Fluff your pillow, shut your eyes and let his music put you to bed.

Richter has composed what he calls an “eight-hour lullaby” for adults. Titled simply “Sleep,” the music is at times so soft and trance-inducing that you can’t help but slip into a relaxed state.

On Thursday, at 8:00 p.m. no matter where you are in the world, the full work will be free online overnight at the One World Sleep website. Participants can listen, fall asleep and later share thoughts using #OneWorldSleep on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Richter, a post-classical composer known for a minimalist but emotional style, created the music for HBO’s “The Leftovers.” He has taken on unusual challenges, such as rewriting Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” in a way that balances the original with a modern approach. His own work, such as “The Blue Notebooks,” can be found in film soundtracks, such as Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island,” and on the dance stage, used by adventurous choreographers like Wayne McGregor.